


a dream dreamed in time

by jamespadfoot



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: CS oneshot, Captain Cobra - Freeform, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-30
Updated: 2015-05-30
Packaged: 2018-04-01 23:34:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4038892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamespadfoot/pseuds/jamespadfoot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For nights on end, as the search for her never yields, Killian dreams of naught but his alternate life, one filled with cowardice and void of hope, until a brave young lad had freed him. Until a blonde goddess with tangled hair and tattered clothes had knocked the breath from his lungs. He dreams, and dreams, because in those short moments, he'd believed them to be his family. The boy his own, and the woman his wife, in a reality he desperately hoped to wake up to. And now that he's woken, Killian Jones wants that family. A family that is a dream dreamed in time - one he intends to make reality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a dream dreamed in time

He awakens with a jerk, the rushed footsteps above deck jolting the Captain to guard, and he’s out of bed with a hand on his sword when the boy bursts into the room, cheeks flushed and hair windswept. 

The dream chokes him then, a world behind closed eyelids only moments before, where he’d been a bumbling, lowly deckhand, who had his whole world spin and tilt the moment the boy in question and his seraphic mother had slammed into his chest. _That_ Killian had died thinking the woman was his wife, and the boy his son, and this Killian wants to fulfil his counterpart’s dying wish. 

It’s why he dreams of them, that life, where instead of death they’d sailed away, together, happy, a family, and Henry had looked to him as a father. 

“Henry, son, what is,” he says, remnants of the life he’d left behind in his sleep seeping into his words, and falters when he registers the boys fractionally widened eyes, “the matter?” he finishes, the end of his sentence lower and less confident than he’d like. 

For all his usual expressiveness, the boy does not react to Killian’s slip, nor does he correct him by reminding him that his father is unfortunately, dead. Instead, he pushes on to his reason for appearing quite so abruptly in his quarters. 

“We need to leave. Now.”

The command is said with no place to question authority, but Killian’s lived a life too long of giving orders to receive them so easily. 

“And where would we set course to?”

“Avalon.”

He stills, taking in the boy fully. Henry is dressed for warmth, a backpack secured firmly on his shoulders, packed full with a bottle attached. It’s then he notices the object in his hand. In his right hand, he holds a compass Killian is only too familiar with.

“Henry?”

“I’ll explain later, Killian, please, trust me.”

“It’s not a matter of trust, m’boy. Are your grandparents and mother aware that you’ve discovered the way to Merlin?”

“Yes,” he says, but Killian knows immediately he isn’t being forthright. He may not have Emma’s accuracy, but let it not be said that Captain Hook does not understand people. 

“But?”

Henry sighs, thrusting the compass towards him that he grasps without thought. 

_It’s beautiful,_ he thinks, sharing down briefly at the turns and dials and planets etched into its brass, with a bright red of north spinning in a lazy circle, as if it can’t quite decide where to show. The first time he’d seen it, it had been in her hands, and he had been too mesmerised by _her_ to notice the finer details of the compass, but now, in her absence, it’s a small little token to tie to his memory.

“We have to do this together.”

Killian considers that, something about the boy’s words screaming father-son on the rescue to save the one woman they love unconditionally, but Killian knows that is simply the after effect of his dream.

“And why’s that, lad?”

“The book.”

He is reminded suddenly, that Henry is now the author of the blasted book that dictates their stories. And yet… 

“Isn’t the book only meant to record things _after_ they happen?” 

“Yes, and it wrote _this,”_ he says, grabbing the big book out of his backpack swiftly, “as I was remembering what the apprentice told us.” 

“ _The wielder of the pen considered the dictations of The Apprentice as he had lain on his deathbed, succumbing to the fight the darkness had brought upon his soul. Author Henry knew then, what he must do. If he was right, only the princesses’s true loves could save her, the only two who had proved themselves worthy of her unconditional love_ ,” Killian reads aloud, voice faltering to a hush as he reads the end of the sentence. 

 

_Worthy of her unconditional love_. 

 

“It’s the door,” Henry insists, “the one Elsa and Anna took back to Arendelle. Killian, we’re _the only_ ones who can go through it.”

“Be as that may,” he says quietly, all traces of sleep disappeared as the gravity of the words sink in, “we cannot march off with nary a word. Even if they can’t follow, they must know, and we must prepare. We do not know what awaits us in Avalon, and there have been many, many stories about the place, as I’ve told you, and some I haven’t.”

“But you’re coming with, right?”

“Did you doubt I would?” 

“Of course not,” Henry says, “we’ve got to put our family back together.”

It may have been a dream, but with the real Henry in front of him, determined and sure, with the words of ‘our family’ reverberating around the cabin, Killian thinks that maybe it’s not a dream so far fetched after all. After they un-darkify the Dark One, of course. But what’s a little darkness in the face of love and family?


End file.
